Sharon's Marketing Missive

I was having a debate with my friend Darby the other day. He said “inspiration is what happens when you run out of good ideas.” Thinking about my ongoing struggle to find good copywriters, I said not good ideas, just ideas.

The timing of the conversation was perfect because I’d already been lamenting what seems to be a complete and utter lack of good copywriting these days. After talking to Darby, I was thinking I might change his saying to “Good copywriting is what happens when you run out of clichés.”

It’s as if there are a hundred or so key phrases, and copywriters just shuffle them around. Maybe it’s like those poetry magnets people have on their refrigerators? Maybe all these copywriters have magnets that say “wow your senses,” “solutions,” “needs,” “you’ve come to expect,” etc., all stuck to their filing cabinets. Then when they have a new project, they just shuffle the magnets around and plug in the client name and voila! It’s writing for the web in a snap!

The problem is, clients often trust the copywriter to give them good stuff, not “me too” copy. Yet they don’t want to question the “expertise” of the copywriter. Clients? Be aware (beware?): Anyone can claim to be a copywriter, anyone. You don’t have to go to school or be certified or anything. Be willing to say you think something sounds dull, drab, lifeless. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes: Would you want to read it?

The other problem is, when you write copy the way we do at We Know Words, you sometimes have clients who want the generic. For them, it’s too scary to stand out from the crowd. They just want to be blah and boring and boorish, to play it safe by not playing at all. Then selfishly expect their customers to pay attention anyway.

If you’re writing or settling for generic copy, you’re not just adding to the overabundance of bad Web content and useless marketing collateral. And whether you’re a big corporation or a small business, you’re doing a disservice to your customers too. They want someone to sound different, to reach out to them and have something worth saying in a voice that stands out from the din.

Good copywriting is what happens when you really know the audience, start from scratch, dig deeper, struggle and struggle and struggle, ruthlessly rewrite and edit, and always push just a little more for copy that’s attention getting, compelling and worth reading.